Time to wash down the muffuletta. Look to the wishing well in the center of the courtyard. Wait a minute…aren’t we below sea level? How is there a well in the French Quarter?
Apparently, there were once wells in the French Quarter.
You can find another at the Historic New Orleans Collection one block away on Royal Street. Most homes had wells in New Orleans at one time, but the high water table meant nasty, muddy water. So they relied on rainwater to meet their needs.
In the 1885 etching of the courtyard, you can see a cistern on the right. The sisters wouldn’t have used a well for their home water needs. Cisterns were the common method of collecting rainwater for home use at this time.
In fact, the use of cisterns is what prolonged the Yellow Fever epidemic in New Orleans for so long. It wasn’t until the 1890s that they realized that it was spread by mosquitoes and mosquitoes need standing water to breed. Soon after, city water system was created, homes were plumbed with more expediency, and the cisterns were largely dismantled.
You can still find cisterns at the Gallier House tour on Royal Street and at the Hermann-Grima House tour on St. Louis Street.
The sisters opened their shop in 1886. Marie Laveau died in 1881. This location was the private residence of first Jean Baptiste Zenon (sometimes Xenon) Cavelier (1776-1850), president of the Banque de l’Orleans, who built it in 1832, and then Louis Muh (1801-1882), a well-known jeweler with his own interesting story, during Marie Laveau’s lifetime. It was not a public courtyard and unfortunately unlikely a place to practice voodoo rituals.
But it is a place to call on centuries of memories and experience in a quintessential French Quarter courtyard to form some of your own.
15 Jan 1831, Sat ·Page 2
Created: 1 January 1903.
Created: Not dated. Circa late 19th century.
Newspaper references to 139 Royal (the original address) and 613-615 Royal (the modern address changed in 1894):
20 Aug 1846, Thu ·Page 2
26 Sep 1856, Fri ·Page 2
27 Jan 1870, Thu ·Page 1
23 Nov 1870, Wed ·Page 3
20 Sep 1874, Sun ·Page 6
27 Sep 1874, Sun ·Page 7
30 Jul 1876, Sun ·Page 11
22 Jan 1882, Sun ·Page 10
10 Jan 1884, Thu ·Page 5
01 Dec 1886, Wed ·Page 8
23 Mar 1904, Wed ·Page 3
19 Sep 1908, Sat ·Page 5
Sources:
- https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/10/31/415535913/how-yellow-fever-turned-new-orleans-into-the-city-of-the-dead
- Cisterns The Rise & Fall of the New Orleans Cistern
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cisterns_in_New_Orleans
- https://www.hnoc.org/publications/first-draft/why-would-museum-want-140-year-old-pipe-found-beneath-bourbon-street
- https://www.hnoc.org/publications/first-draft/late-1800s-devastating-yellow-fever-epidemics-forced-new-orleans-confront
- Two Odd Fellows
- Museum Review: The Germaine Wells Mardi Gras Museum at Arnaud’s
- News Orleans Newsletter
- The Eagle’s Nest
- Protected: The Ghost of Mary A. Deubler
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